


Transfer Student

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Phil Coulson, Gen, Hogwarts AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson is not actually a wizard. No one at Hogwarts notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on this [wonderful piece of art](http://sherlockandtheholmeboys.tumblr.com/post/80423377372/restlesslyaspiring-twigwise-soloproject) on tumblr.

When Nick Fury, former auror, is appointed the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, most people don’t know that he is bringing his nephew Philip Coulson with him. After all, Fury has done some dangerous work and pissed off a lot of people, and it’s probably better if people don’t know that he has a kid they could use to get to him – especially since said kid is at a significant disadvantage in any kind of wizard’s duel.

Phil Coulson looks like anyone else – not bad-looking, but nothing out of the ordinary. He has a pleasant face, and brownish hair, and a pair of deceptively-placid blue eyes that can turn cold or assessing in an instant. He’s been trained to take on people better-armed than him all his life, ever since his parents were killed when he was small and Fury took him in. Because while Phil is intelligent, quick-thinking, quick-moving, and calm in a crisis, he is also, unfortunately, a squib.

This doesn’t matter to Fury, and Phil, for the most part, has learned not to let it get to him either. But it matters to other people.

“You’re bringing your nephew?” asks the headmaster, when Fury mentions that fact. “I assume he’ll be transferring in, then? Which school did he go to previously? Beaubatons? Durmstrang?”

“He didn’t,” Fury replies dourly. “Phil’s a squib.”

“Oh,” says the headmaster, a look of pity already forming on his face.

“He’s attended a muggle school in the past, learning what he needs to know to make it in the muggle world, but since I will be at Hogwarts this year, it seemed best if he accompanied me. I will be teaching him myself.”

“I see,” says the headmaster. “Are you sure? The pressure of being in a school full of witches and wizards –”

“Phil will handle it,” Fury says with finality. “Just don’t tell anyone he’s here.”

* * *

Phil takes the news that he is going to spend the next year living in a school for witches and wizards with equanimity.

“I guess I should try to blend in,” he says thoughtfully.

“You do whatever you need to do, and you talk to me if anyone gives you shit you can’t handle. You hear me, Phil?”

“Got it, Uncle Nick.” Phil still looks considering. “I take it you’ll be keeping my existence on the down-low.”

Fury just grunts an acknowledgement.

“I can work with that.” Phil glances at him. “I’m going to need school supplies.”

“I’ll take you to Diagon Alley tomorrow,” says Fury, and makes a face. “What kind of fool names a place ‘Diagon Alley?’”

“A punny one,” Phil suggests, and easily dodges the tripping jinx Fury sent his way.

* * *

They go to Diagon Alley the next day. Phil chats politely with all of the shopkeepers while Fury is having a beer at the Leaky Cauldron, tells them about how he is looking forward to transferring into Hogwarts. He buys copies of all of the sixth year school-books to memorize, despite the cost, and several sets of Hogwarts robes.

He also buys four ties: one red and gold, one green and silver, one blue and bronze, and one yellow and black. When the shopkeeper asks about it, he only smiles, and says that it seems like a good idea.


	2. Chapter 2

When Phil climbs onto the Hogwarts Express, dragging his trunk behind him, he’s wearing the blue and bronze tie. He’s heard that the Gryffindors and Slytherins have a rivalry that often leads to violence, and he doesn’t want to get caught in the middle until he’s familiarised himself with how the houses interact with one another, and has established his position. So he’s chosen to dress as a Ravenclaw, hoping that their reputation for avoiding violent altercations is accurate.

Phil finds himself an empty carriage and sits down, pulling out his copy of the sixth-year transfiguration book. In practice it’s useless to him, of course, but a through knowledge of magical theory is sometimes helpful, especially when dealing with a witch or wizard who assumes that because he was a squib he has to be an idiot. After only a couple of minutes the door bursts open again, and a boy with wild hair and a Ravenclaw tie walk in, along with several of friends.

The other teenagers don’t notice Phil at first, sitting quietly in the corner, but the boy with the wild hair notices him immediately.

“Who are you?” he asks sharply. “And what are you doing in our carriage?”

Phil lowers his book, keeping his expression serene.

“Your carriage?”

“Yeah,” says the wild-haired boy. “We have this carriage every year. Everyone knows that.” His eyes flick to Phil’s Ravenclaw tie. “I haven’t seen you around before.”

“Transfer student,” Phil explains calmly.

“Well it’s nice to meet you and all, but since this is, as we’ve already established, _our_ carriage –”

“ _Tony –_ ” says a boy with curly hair, sighing.

“–then maybe you’d like to find somewhere else to sit.”

Phil just raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“I don’t think so,” he says, and goes back to reading his book.

The wild-haired boy appears flummoxed by this, but both the curly-haired boy and the dark-skinned boy next to him are hiding grins.

“C’mon, Tony, leave him alone,” says the dark-skinned boy. “Like we need the entire carriage to ourselves. We can take one guy sitting in the corner reading his book.”

“But–” begins Tony, but the dark-skinned boy levels a look at him that reminds Phil distinctly of his Uncle Nick, and Tony deflates.

“Fine,” he grumbles, taking a seat. “Whatever you say, honeybear.”

The other two boys roll their eyes, and sit down as well.

The group spends the rest of the train ride ignoring Phil, apart from occasional glances from Tony’s friends, but that’s fine. Phil didn’t go into this to make friends. As far as he’s concerned, this is all just another lesson on how to survive, and excel at doing so.

By the time he’s old enough to do something with his life besides practice, people aren’t going to have the faintest idea how to handle Phil. The thought makes him smile.

When they get to Hogwarts Phil goes with the other students, and ends up sitting at the Ravenclaw table. So far his infiltration plan is going well, but it’s only in the early stages yet. There’s still a lot that could go wrong.

He looks up at the head table, where Fury is sitting. His uncle smirks at him, and raises his glass. Phil just gives him a long, bland look.

Fury only smirks all the more.


	3. Chapter 3

After dinner, Phil slips away to the quarters he’s sharing with his uncle. He has a bedroom all to himself, but he and his uncle share the bathroom and the living room. When he arrives, his trunk is by the door, and Fury is going over lesson plans.

“Everything going well?” asks Fury. Phil nods.

“I think tomorrow I’ll be a Hufflepuff,” he muses.

“Whatever,” says Fury. “Just be careful.”

Phil smiles at him.

“When am I not?”

Fury only snorts doubtfully.

* * *

The next morning Phil joins the fifth-year Hufflepuffs as they file into the History of Magic classroom. Already Phil has overheard stories of how extraordinarily boring Professor Binns’ classes are, and has come prepared with a couple of Auror novels tucked away in his bag. Phil would have liked to have joined the sixth years, but all their classes today require practical wand-work, so here he is, pretending to be a fifth-year student.

He gets a couple of puzzled looks as he sits near the back of the classroom, from people obviously wondering who he is:  he smiles pleasantly at them, and receives confused smiles in return.

As the class progresses, Phil observes everyone in the room. No one is actually paying any attention to the professor: instead they’re all reading or doodling on their parchment, or taking the opportunity to catch up on sleep. A couple of students have even brought along pillows to rest their heads on as they nap.

There’s a blonde boy to Phil’s right, looking extremely bored. Unlike everyone else he doesn’t seem to have come prepared. He’s pulling absently on a loose thread on his second-hand robes, and Phil takes pity on him. Reaching out, he taps the other boy on the shoulder.

The boy starts, and looks around with wide eyes, and Phil holds out his second Auror novel. The boy just stares for a moment, bewildered, but Phil patiently waits. Blinking, the boy hesitantly takes the offered novel.

 _‘Thanks,’_ he mouths.

 _‘You’re welcome,’_ Phil mouths back, with a small smile.

After class finishes, the boy joins him in the hallway.

“So uh, thanks for the book,” he tells Phil awkwardly. “Mind if I borrow it? Because I’m a few chapters in, and well, it’s pretty interesting.”

“Sure,” says Phil. “Just return it when you’ve finished.” He starts to walk down the hallway, and the other boy keeps pace with him.

“Are you new, or something?” asks the blonde boy. “Because I haven’t seen you before, and I think I’d have noticed if you were in my classes after like four years – I mean –”

Phil allows amusement to creep into his expression as the other boy stops, tangled in his own words.

“Yeah, I’m new,” he agrees. “Phil Coulson. I’m a transfer student.”

“Oh, right,” says the other boy. “Um, Clint Barton.” He smiles tentatively. “Want someone to show you around?”

“No need,” says Phil, and sees the beginning of disappointment in Clint’s face. He continues smoothly, “However, I wouldn’t mind some company during lunch.”

Clint’s face brightens again.

“Cool.”

Phil and Clint sit at the Hufflepuff table together, where they are quickly joined by a slightly younger girl with long dark hair and fashionable rectangular glasses.

“How’s my favourite bro,” she says brightly, dropping into the seat besides Clint and interrupting his conversation with Phil about Quidditch. “And hey, who’s this?”

“Phil Coulson,” Phil says. “I’m a transfer student.”

“Awesome,” says the girl. “Where from?”

Before Fury was a British Auror, he worked as an Auror in New York.

“America.”

“Sweet,” says the girl. “Is it true you get more ice-cream flavours over there, or is that a lie?”

Phil smiles blandly.

“I’ll never tell.”

The girl looks vaguely startled, but laughs.

“Alright then, Mr Mysterious. I’m Darcy, by the way. Me and Natasha are friends with this lunkhead here.” She ruffles Clint’s hair as he protests.

“Natasha?” Phil asks.

“Yeah, she’s a Slytherin and scary, but we love her anyway,” Darcy says. “Natasha!”

A moment later a girl with fiery red curls joins them. She’s wearing a Slytherin tie, but her presence at the Hufflepuff table is accepted without comment. She eyes Phil.

“You’re new,” she says, without waiting for Phil to introduce himself.

“Transfer student,” Phil says. He wonders how many more times he’s going to need to speak that particular lie. Quite often, he thinks.

Natasha purses her lips, gives him a long look, and finally nods. The four of them eat lunch together, Clint and Darcy talking animatedly, Phil or Natasha occasionally interjecting.

By the end of lunch, Phil feels that he has the beginnings of a connection with these people. It’s not bad for his first day, Phil thinks.


	4. Chapter 4

Next up are the Gryffindors. They hold Quidditch tryouts a few days after school starts. Afterwards, most of them trail back upstairs to Gryffindor Tower. Wearing a red and gold tie, Phil walks only a short distance away from a group of Gryffindors who are all laughing and joking with each other. From what he overhears, he gathers that the impressively-built blonde boy – Thor, the others call him – has just gotten a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Beater for the second year in a row.

Phil isn’t sure exactly where the entrance to Gryffindor Tower _is,_ but he soon finds out: the group in front of him approaches an enormous painting at the end of a hallway that goes nowhere, and one of them calls out, “Aconite!”

The portrait swings forward, exposing a hidden doorway. The group in front of Phil walks through. By the time Phil reaches the painting, it’s already swung shut again, but that doesn’t matter.

“Aconite,” says Phil politely. The portrait swings forward, and Phil enters the Gryffindor common-room.

He finds a spare seat and sits down, acting like someone with nothing much to do who’s enjoying the atmosphere and the opportunity to do nothing. Meanwhile he observes the room, and everyone in it. The Gryffindors seem like a cheerful, rather boisterous bunch, all in all.

Phil’s attention is caught by an older boy sitting in one corner by himself. He’s handsome, with blonde hair and blue eyes, but his expression is pensive as he draws in the sketchbook resting on his knee.

Phil walks over, and sees that somehow, the other boy has captured the life and movement of the people around him.

“You’re good at that,” he tells the other boy. The boy starts slightly, and glances up, the pensive expression vanishing in an instant. A sunny, slightly self-deprecating smile replaces it.

“Thanks,” says the other boy. “It’s nice of you to say so.”

“No, really,” Phil says sincerely, and the other boy looks pleased.

“You like art?” he asks, and Phil shrugs.

“I know a thing or two, especially about muggle art.”

The other boy lights up, and before Phil knows it, the two of them are carrying on an intelligent conversation about various muggle masters, and their styles and techniques. They’re there a good twenty minutes before a brown-haired boy yells “Steve!” and the boy Phil is talking to looks over, smiling.

“Sorry, I’d better go,” he says, closing his sketchbook. “But it was nice to meet you…”

“Phil,” Phil supplies.

“Steve,” the other boy introduces himself.

“Hey, punk, I ain’t got all day!” calls the brown-haired boy, and Steve sighs.

“It’s okay,” says Phil, with a slight grin, and Steve grins back before he joins the boy who was yelling for him.

Phil spends another hour or so there, and gets into a game of Exploding Snap with a couple of kids about his own age. He considers the time well-spent, despite the burns he receives to one hand.

* * *

Slytherin is harder. There’s a group of them who study in the library, and Phil joins them one day, wearing a green and silver tie. They all look at him with varying degrees of calculation, but Phil is calm and self-assured, and one of them gives him permission to sit down. He knows that this is a test, to see how well he does.

Phil already knows all the material they’re studying however – the advantages of learning ahead – and when one of the other students mentions the Defense Against the Dark Arts essay Fury has assigned, Phil is able to give good advice without giving away any answers. He gets some looks of approval for that.

Halfway through, Clint’s friend Natasha joins the group, and Phil inwardly winces as she looks at him, her gaze dropping to his tie.

She doesn’t say anything until afterwards, when Phil is walking back towards his quarters. All of a sudden Natasha is just _there,_ as swift and silent as a hit-wizard. Phil didn’t sense her coming at all. He badly wants to jump out of his skin, but doesn’t.

“Natasha,” he says instead.

Natasha’s eyes are on his face.

“Hmm.” She lets the silence string out, but Phil is immune to that kind of pressure: Fury does it far better than Natasha does. “I could have sworn you were a Hufflepuff a week ago.”

Phil smiles: only a little, but he smiles. Her eyes narrow.

“You must be mistaken,” he says smoothly. Natasha is quiet for a moment, her eyes assessing.

“Perhaps,” she concedes. She smiles suddenly, dark and secretive. “I think you are playing a very intriguing game,” she says. “It will be interesting to see where it goes.”

She walks away, leaving Phil wondering whether he can count her as an ally, or an enemy.

* * *

Infiltrating Ravenclaw is easiest of all: all he has to do is solve a riddle, and he’s in. From there, he learns what he can.

(Mostly, he finds that Tony Stark is enough to try even Fury' patience.)

* * *

Phil collects names, habits, all kinds of data. By his fourth week in, he feels he’s getting a handle on it all.

* * *

“You settling in?” Fury asks. This being Fury, and Fury being a paranoid ex-Auror, he doesn’t mean what anyone else would by the question.

“It’s under control,” says Phil, with some pride.

Fury links his fingers together over the top of his desk and looks at Phil.

“Alright then, kid. Tell me what you’ve found out.”

Phil does.

* * *

Phil’s personal web of relationships is in some ways more complicated than the data he’s gathered: among those he counts as friends there’s Clint, who’s friends with Darcy and Natasha, both of whom are also (probably) Phil’s friends. Darcy is friends with Thor Odinsson who’s half-brother to Loki Laufeyson who is rivals with Tony Stark who is dating Pepper Potts who is also friends with Natasha… it goes on and on, an intricate network of interpersonal connections that Phil has carefully observed.

Observation is the easy part. It’s the interactions that are hard.  
 


	5. Chapter 5

It’s Phil Darcy goes to when Clint gets himself stuck in a secret passage. The passage itself is very narrow; it could accommodate a second year at the largest. Clint is nowhere near small enough to fit into it. Phil doesn’t understand why he decided to try.

“You could always conjure oil and see if that makes him slippery enough to get free,” Phil muses.

“Why me?” Darcy demands. “Why not you?”

Phil only raises an eyebrow at her.

“Ugh, fine. What’s the incantation?”

“Can we try something that doesn’t end with me covered with oil?” Clint begs. “That’s going to be hard to explain.”

Phil thinks for a moment.

“Wait here,” he says, and goes to Fury’s office. Fury is alone, grading essays from the looks of it. Judging by the amount of red pen being used, the students are failing his personal standards. Fury glances up at Phil.

:”You’ve got that look that says you’re about to do something that someone deserves to have happen to them, Phil.”

“One of my friends is stuck in a secret passageway,” Phil explains. Somehow he keeps a straight face. “Can you get him out?”

Fury cracks a grin.

“I assume you want to teach him a lesson?”

“I can hope,” Phil agrees.

When Phil returns with Fury behind him, Darcy gasps and Clint’s eyes bug out.

“Barton,” Fury barks. “What godforsaken mess have you got into now?”

“Uh,” says Clint, panicking, and shoots Phil a betrayed stare. Phil smiles serenely.

“He got stuck in the passageway,” Darcy tells Fury, never afraid to offer her two cents. Fury fixes Clint with a stare. Then he sighs deeply, as though the state of humanity in general disappoints him, but particularly the example right in front of him.

Clint pinks in embarrassment.

“What in hell made you think this was a good idea?” Fury demands.

Phil is kind of curious about that one himself.

“I wanted to see where it goes,” Clint says feebly.

“Next time, bribe a first year,” Fury recommends, casting an expansion charm. Clint is suddenly free. “Coulson, you have my sympathies.”

He shakes his head, and stalks off. Clint looks mortified. Darcy looks like she wants to laugh.

“I think the oil would have been less embarrassing,” Clint moans. “Phil, how could you do that to me?” He buries his face in his hands.

“Maybe next time you’ll think twice before you climb somewhere that’s too small for you,” Phil says without mercy, and Darcy snickers.

“Come on, it was _Fury!_ No one deserves that! He’s terrifying!”

“He kind of is,” Darcy agrees, and looks at Phil curiously. “You’ve got to be like the only person I’ve ever seen who isn’t scared of him,” she observes.

Phil thinks about lying or evading the indirect question, but decides to tell the truth.

“Fury’s my uncle.”

Both Clint and Darcy’s eyes widen.

“Get out of town!” Darcy hollers.

“He’s your _uncle?_ ” Clint looks horrified. Phil smiles faintly.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“On second thought, that explains so much,” Darcy says thoughtfully.

“It does?” Clint asks.

“Sure. It explains why Phil here’s always so cool and collected. After a lifetime of Fury for an uncle, you’d either be more highly-strung than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, or nothing in the world would bother you.”

Darcy has a point. If Phil hadn’t learnt early on not to be intimidated by Uncle Nick, he would be a very different person by now.

“Keep it to yourself,” Phil advises. “I don’t want some idiot deciding that I’m getting special treatment because my uncle’s a professor.”

“You know, you guys don’t really look related,” Darcy says, which makes Phil and Clint both snort at the same time.

“True,” Phil agrees. “He’s my uncle by marriage. My aunt died when I was a kid.” He doesn’t add that it was in the same attack that killed his parents. That’s not something he’s willing to share with _anyone,_ just yet. Phil doesn’t need anyone’s pity for being an orphan. He changes the subject before Darcy or Clint can comment on his aunt. “I’m feeling peckish. Does anyone want to sneak into the kitchens with me?”

“Hell yes,” Darcy declares.


	6. Chapter 6

As time passes, Phil finds himself becoming an agent of order, picking up the slack when the prefects don’t perform their duties as well as they should. It’s Phil who tells Thor Odinsson not to feed the first years butterbeer during the Gryffindor post-Quidditch victory party, no matter how amusing thy are under its influence. It’s Phil who works out that Loki Laufeyson is the source of the contraband Zonko’s and Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes merchandise circulating throughout the student population, even if he hasn’t worked out how to deal with that particular problem (yet).

Late at night when he can’t sleep, Phil wanders the corridors, searching out necking couples and ordering them back to their dormitories before they can get themselves in trouble with the teachers who patrol the castle at night.

Phil tells Clint to stop hiding food in the furniture in the Hufflepuff common-room, no matter how convenient it is (and tells Fury that Clint feels the need to hoard food, and has anyone ever checked out his home life?). It’s Phil who finds out that one of the Gryffindor boys is being bullied by his dorm-mates, and quietly yet menacingly puts a stop to it.

After a while it’s not only the Slytherins who study with him in the library: Phil gets a reputation for knowing all about Defense Against the Dark Arts, and students start coming to him when they need help and don’t dare approach Fury. Phil helps all of them as best he can.

The night that Tony Stark is due to duel Loki Laufeyson, Phil sits in the Ravenclaw common-room until late, reading the latest trashy witch-lit novel by Valentina Plantagenet. (Phil has a secret weakness for trashy novels. He can’t help it. Sometimes he needs something a little silly in his life.)

Tony is halfway across the common-room when Phil says, “It’s past curfew, Stark. Do I need to stun you?”

Tony freezes, clearly having overlooked Phil in the large wing-backed chair in the darkest corner of the room. (All Phil will say on that point is that Fury passed along his theatrical streak.)

“But –” he begins.

“Just be careful,” Phil sighs, knowing that it’s pointless to try and stop him.

“Right, I’ll do that,” Tony says, clearly relieved that Phil isn’t about to tell on him. “Thanks Coulson,” he adds, and sneaks out.

Five minutes later a furious James Rhodes comes storming down the stairs from his dormitory.

“That _goddamn_ –”

“He’s meeting Loki for a duel by the old arithmancy classroom,” says Phil, without looking up from his book. James nods at him in thanks, face grim, and stalks out of the common-room.

Phil leaves the Ravenclaw common-room and heads back to his quarters. James can handle it from here.

* * *

Half the school seems to believe that Phil is actually a prefect, despite his lack of badge. Phil is perfectly fine with that impression.


	7. Chapter 7

The only problem, really, is Loki Laufeyson.

Phil isn’t sure what Loki’s problem is, besides being thoroughly nasty and too clever for his own good. Most of the time Phil doesn’t get much attention from others, unless he’s telling someone what to do or helping someone out: usually, he’s just another kid in robes in a castle full of them. But with Loki, it’s different. From the moment Loki first saw Phil – after Phil had sneaked into the Slytherin common-room disguised as one of them – his gaze on Phil was shrewd and calculating, and Phil had the uncomfortable feeling that for once in his life, he was being _seen._

Weeks later, and that feeling hasn’t diminished one iota.

Phil hates the way that Loki observes him whenever they’re in the same room, the other boy always watching as Phil goes about his business. Loki never does anything without purpose, so if he’s watching Phil, then it’s for a reason. Phil is rather concerned about what that reason _is._

The situation comes to a head one day when Phil tries to break up a fight between Loki and Tony Stark, and Loki aims a curse his way. Phil ducks just in time.

For some reason, this makes Loki pause, an arrested expression on his face. Then he smiles, wide and catlike. Phil feels a sudden sensation of foreboding.

“Aren’t you overstepping your bounds a little, Coulson?” Loki asks lightly. “After all, you’re hardly a prefect. Our conduct isn’t your concern.”

“You’re endangering the other students,” Phil tells him shortly.

“Stay out of this Coulson,” Tony snarls. Phil doesn’t know what Loki said to him to make him so angry, but it must have been both very insulting and shrewdly-done. “I’ll handle it –”

But Loki has lost interest in Tony, and when he takes a step closer to Phil, wand raised, Phil gets ready to move, knowing he’s in trouble.

When Phil dodges the next curse and still doesn’t pull out a wand, Loki’s smile widens.

“Aren’t you going to fight back?” he asks. “Or are you some kind of _squib?_ ” His smile is triumphant. He raises his wand, and starts on a new incantation. “ _Infernis san_ –”

Phil has lived with an Auror for most of his life. He knows the Blood-Boiling Curse when he hears it. Before Loki can get all the words out he runs forward, slams the heel of his palm into Loki’s nose, thrusting his hand up and back towards the bridge of the nose.

Loki’s incantation cuts off with a howl. Then, because Phil was raised by Fury and he is therefore not a nice person, Phil brings his knee up into contact with Loki’s groin. _Hard._

Loki collapses in a snivelling mess, clutching at his privates, blood puring from his nose. Phil looks down at him.

“Using magic in the hallways is strictly forbidden,” he says calmly. There’s a couple of gasps from the onlookers, and some sniggers. Suddenly the hallway falls silent, and Phil looks up.

“What the ever-loving hell is going on here?”

Phil looks up to see Fury with his grimmest, most intimidating glare. His one eye is fixed unblinkingly on Phil.

“Sir,” Phil responds. “Laufeyson attempted to use the Blood-Boiling Curse on me.”

“He _what?_ ” Fury snaps, and several students cringe. “And how do you know that?”

“The incantation is unmistakeable, professor,” Phil replies, completely unruffled.

“So you what, beat the shit out of him without even using your wand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fury nods, and looks down at Loki in a way that bodes ill for the Slytherin. “Impressive. Good job, Coulson. Twenty points to whatever-the-hell house you’re even in. You,” he says sharply to Loki, who is still sobbing in the middle of the hallway. “Get the hell up.” He looks like only the promise he gave the headmaster not to harm the students is keeping him from kicking Loki. “You’re coming with me, and we’ll be having a little talk with the Aurors.”

Loki somehow manages to blanch whiter.

“What,” says Fury, “you didn’t think using a class-A forbidden curse on another student wasn’t going to have consequences? That kind of shit means time in Azkaban. Now get up before I make you.”

Somehow, Loki pulls himself to his feet, his face streaked with blood and tears, his expression somewhere between fearful and furious. Fury casts a quick healing spell on Loki’s nose without bothering to set it – Loki’s going to have a crooked nose for the rest of his life – and drags him off by the arm.

Phil glances around, to find himself the object of awed stares. Stark is standing there, gaping. Phil smiles a little, gathers the books he dropped earlier, and quietly walks away.

* * *

By dinner time, the story of how Phil Coulson took down Loki Laufeyson without even bothering to use a wand is all over the castle.

When people ask him about it, Phil only gives them an enigmatic look, and changes the subject.

The next day, Phil finds out that Loki was expelled, for attempting grievous harm against another. He can't help but think that Loki will find his feet regardless, and hopes that their paths never again cross. He fears that Loki will hold a grudge, and has confidence in the other boy's ability to act on it. 


	8. Chapter 8

The next Saturday afternoon when Phil doesn’t have anything else scheduled, he has tea with Aunt Peggy.

Aunt Peggy is actually Professor Carter, the transfiguration professor,  but before that she worked with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Phil knows that during the last war with Voldemort, she was part of the underground resistance, helping muggleborns and half-bloods into safe houses and then abroad as the Ministry fell under Voldemort’s control. It’s history now, to most people his age – the war ended before Phil was born – but Phil has always admired her courage and competence.

Aunt Peggy isn’t really his aunt, but she was a friend of his parents and of Uncle Nick, so Phil’s known her all his life, even if he doesn’t see her that often. She’s brisk and no-nonsense without ever being unkind, and nothing stands in her way. She’s never married, and Phil’s never been sure whether it’s because of the sweetheart who died in the war, or simply because Aunt Peggy was too busy doing other, more exciting things and marriage would have gotten in the way of that.

Aunt Peggy has known about Phil’s infiltration of the Hogwarts houses for weeks, but she is both amused and disapproving when she discovers that Phil is doing it to gather information and hone his intelligence-gathering skills, rather than for any more prosaic purpose. She sighs with exasperation when she finds out that Fury has been encouraging him.

“Phil, you are sixteen years old. You should be making friends and having fun, not training yourself for a possible future career as a covert operative.”

“Training myself for a possible future career as a covert operative _is_ how I have fun,” Phil protests mildly. “Besides, I’ve made friends.”

“Oh, really?” Aunt Peggy raises an eyebrow. So Phil tells her about Clint and Darcy and Natasha.

“Do any of them actually know anything about you?” Aunt Peggy asks, when he is done.

“Not really,” Phil admits.

Aunt Peggy purses her mouth.

“Then what you have, Phil, is not a friendship, but an illusion of one,” she says firmly, but not ungently. “Friendship goes both ways. There is a difference between knowing all about a person and their habits, and actually being friends with them. Let them get to know you, Phil. I assure you that they won’t be disappointed.”

The conversation changes to other topics, but Phil finds himself pondering her words long after he leaves her quarters. Phil is very good at ingratiating himself with others and leaving a good impression of himself, at infiltrating social groups and making himself at home. But genuine friendship, he admits privately to himself, isn’t something he really has much experience with.

It was hard to be friends with the kids at his muggle school when he was keeping the massive secret of the wizarding world from them, and constantly coming up with excuses for why he couldn’t have people over (too many wizarding devices at home) or why he didn’t watch the TV shows the other kids did (muggle devices break down around too much magic), and making up stories about his home life that made sense to other people (my uncle’s a police officer, my parents died in an accident). Hogwarts is the same, but in reverse: instead of keeping the wizarding world a secret, he’s keeping his history with the muggles secret. So far he hasn’t told anyone about his life or how he grew up, because that would mean sharing that he’s a squib. Phil has no plans to share that information with anyone.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to share some of the little things, like his favourite Quidditch team or his penchant for old-fashioned music, the kind of things that aren’t important but which help people form a mental profile of what kind of a person he is. After all, he already knows so much about Clint and Darcy, and quite a bit about Natasha. It probably couldn’t hurt to reciprocate.


End file.
